Doctor Octopus
"So go ahead and run, Spider-Man--run away and hide. Sleep well in your secret lair. Because when you wake up tomorrow everything will have '''changed'."'' Dr. Otto Octavious, aka Doctor Octopus or simply Doc Ock, is a supervillain operating in New York City in Earth-1001. A brilliant scientist transformed by an experimental accident, Dr. Octavious went mad and pursued a life of crime to take over the city. This has brought him into conflict with Spider-Man, becoming one of his most memorable and primary foes. History Early Life Born in Schenectady, New York, Otto Octavius had a turbulent upbringing. His father Torbert Octavius, a factory worker, was abusive and violent towards both Otto and his mother Mary Octavius. Young Otto's shyness and good work in school got him labeled as a "teacher's pet" and targeted as a subject for bullying. Torbert did not appreciate having a bullied son, and roared at Otto to use violence in dealing with the bullies. Mary Octavius would defend her son from Torbert's tirades, saying Otto was a gifted thinker who would use his brain to solve problems, not his fists. Due to his mother's insistence and her disgust towards men who worked in manual labor, Otto was determined not to become like his father and threw all his efforts into his education, regularly scoring top marks. Otto's devotion to study paid off with him being awarded a university scholarship. During Otto's freshman year of college, his father's death due to an industrial accident pushed Otto towards the study of, and obsession with, physical science. After graduating from college, Otto found work in an engineering firm. Otto became a brilliant and respected nuclear physicist, atomic research consultant, inventor, and lecturer. He designed a set of highly advanced mechanical arms controlled via a brain-computer-interface to assist him with his research into atomic physics. The tentacle arms were resistant to radiation and were capable of great strength and highly precise movement, attached to a harness that fit around his body. Later in his criminal career, he claimed the inspiration for the device came from The Vitruvian Man, the famous pencil sketch by Leonardo da Vinci, one of his idols. Though his relationship with co-workers was typically hostile, a fellow researcher named Mary Alice Anders befriended him when Otto impressed her with a demonstration of his harness, and the two began a courtship. In due time, Otto proposed marriage to Mary Alice. However, Otto's mother did not approve, believing that no woman was good enough for her son. To please her, he ended his engagement. Later, when he discovered that his mother had begun dating a librarian, he rebuked her, causing her to have a fatal heart attack in the heat of their argument. With the death of his mother and Mary Alice Anders out of his life, Octavius' disposition towards nearly everyone became mean-spirited, and he had become more distracted from paying attention to detail and safety precautions in his work. His co-workers often called him "Dr. Octopus" behind his back, a pun on his actual name inspired by the four-armed apparatus; he was aware of this insult, but he barely cared. Becoming Doctor Octopus During an accidental radiation leak that ended in an explosion, the apparatus became fused to Otto Octavius's body. It was later revealed that the radiation (or possibly his own latent mutation) had mutated his brain so that he could control the movement of the arms using his thoughts alone. The tentacles have since been surgically removed from his body, although Octavius retains the power to control them telepathically from a great distance. The accident also seemingly damaged his brain (although it was later suggested that what was interpreted as brain damage was in fact his mind rewiring itself to accommodate four extra limbs), and the scientist turned to a life of crime, first taking the hospital hostage and calling himself "Dr. Octopus" from the derogatory name that his co-workers had given him. Though Doctor Octopus himself is portly, in poor physical shape, and is near-sighted, with his harness attached he is physically more than a match for Spider-Man. The accident also made his eyes very sensitive to light, requiring him to wear glasses with shaded lenses. Alternate Universes Earth-127025 Doctor Otto Octavious resembles much of his Prime counterpart in this universe. However, the nature of his transformation differs. After the death of both his parents, Otto was free of all distractions and was able to concentrate on school. This enabled his mind to flourish and he demonstrated a natural gift in sciences, becoming a brilliant student in the subject of nuclear physics. He developed a dream of bringing fusion power into mankind's grasp, and so focused his work solely on the project. Passing both his high-school and college courses by presenting his idea as school projects, Otto's drive to make his dream come true was never stronger. Immediately following college, Octavious began working for Oscorp, using its resources and minds to help him along with his project. While working there, he continued to develop his education, eventually gaining his doctorate and becoming a respected nuclear physicist. From here, he became one of the more valuable assets for Oscorp, with his knowledge in nuclear engineering proving quite useful to the company. Using Oscorp's funding, Dr. Octavious developed two key components for his project: a fusion generator and a harness of mechanical arms. While the fusion generator, dubbed by Dr. Octavious in his notes as the "Octavian Generator," would concentrate an isotope of hydrogen atoms to fuse them together, the harness would allow Octavious to safely handle the isotope, as it was radioactive, as well as help contain the fusion reaction once initiated until it self-stabilized. The arms were made to be highly resiliant to heat and impervious to radiation, and were controlled by a control set on the front of the harness. However, secretly behind Dr. Octavious's back, Norman Osborn was merely using his research to fuel his effort; while he funded Octavious's research, Norman only supported him in the prospect of making his company be the first to demonstrate and privatize fusion power. Once Dr. Octavious would reach his goal, Norman planned on writing him out of the project and the company, and claim full responsibility over developing the project. 'The incident' Sometime after Norman Osborn became the Green Goblin, he was instructed by the stranger to "recruit" Dr. Octavious. This would entail causing an accident while Octavious was doing his research, in a critical point which could potentially bring Octavious's dream to life. During the final stage of testing his fusion generator late one night, Octavious, seemingly alone, was able to initiate a successful, sustained fusion reaction, and quickly worked to contain the energy. While this was going on, Norman suddenly caused a power surge to cause the generator to erupt, causing an intense explosion. Octavious was flung across the room, and the fusion energy winked out. Since Norman had control of the lab's security systems, he was able to sneak Octavious's unconcious body without alerting anyone. When Octavious finally awoke some time later, he was in the stranger's secret lair and was restrained by some type of electromagnetic cage. He found that the control set on the harness was removed, but was somehow able to 'feel' through his mechanical arms. He was visited by the stranger, who explained the incident was a freak accident caused by a random flux of energy from his imperfect generator. It had the effect of permanently bonding the mechanical arms to Octavious's body, but also somehow altered his central nervous system so that he could freely manipulate the arms as if they were his natural arms and legs. The stranger offered help to come from Oscorp's best researchers in allowing him to control the arms, since removing them, he claimed, would kill Octavious, and would also continue to help developing fusion power; in return, he wanted Dr. Octavious's full cooperation, and exclusive access to the fusion generator once it was complete. Dr. Octavious complied, mentally rewritten and solely focused on making sustained fusion power a reality and planning on accomplishing it by any means necessary. Personality Powers/Abilities Possessing no superhuman traits other than his gifted intellect, Doctor Octavious relies on his mechanical arms to defeat his foes. Equipment 'Prime Universe' Doc Ock is most known for his harness, which has four mechanical arms attached to it. Due to the accident that fused them to his body, he is capable of easily controlling them as if they were his own natural limbs. Each tentacle, approximately five inches in diameter, terminates in three single-jointed pincers. *The pincers are able to rotate in relation to the arm for 360 degrees, in a screwdriver-like twisting motion. *Each tentacle is approximately six feet long at full contraction, but can extend to a maximum of 24 feet in length. *Each tentacle is capable of moving at a speed of ninety feet per second and strike with the force of a jackhammer. *By combining the intrinsic strength of both his tentacles and the pincers, Doctor Octopus can scale stone, brick, or concrete walls by rending "handholds" in the surface of the wall. Octopus is able to use his tentacles for traversing horizontal distances as well. At full extension, he can travel high above the ground as if on stilts, either using two tentacles, or for maximum speed (approximately 50 miles per hour), four tentacles. *The tentacles can generate 50 mile per hour winds if spun like a giant fan. *Each tentacle segment contains four high-efficiency electric motors equipped with a clutched, helical-gear train, independently mounted on frictionless gimbals and housed in four thin, overlapping layers of titanium-niobium steel. The titanium-steel alloy is light, has high-tensile strength, a high melting point, and high thin-wall rigidity. *The motors get their power from a small nuclear-powered thermo-electric generator, which can provide several hundred watts per hour for up to five years before needing to replace its U-239 core. *The tentacles have been modified since the time of the original accident to include high-efficiency battery packs (enabling movement when cut off from the central power source) and individual micro-circuit control modules (enabling each arm to perform certain pre-programmed actions when Octopus loses conscious control). *In the event that Octopus loses consciousness, the control module of each arm has enough pre-programmed conditional responses in its memory chip to enable it to perform a relatively complex sequence of actions, such as saving his life. The trauma of his arm or arms being separated from the harness causes a period of disorientation in which his arms flail about uncontrollably until the pre-programming takes over. 'Earth-127025' (Editing) Gallery Trivia Category:Male Category:Villain Category:Earth-1001 Inhabitant